I let the Nestles box slip back into the bag, stepped into the doorway and looked down at her. “I love you,” I said. And then a whisper, “This is for me.”
I heated the milk in a pot on the stove, shunning the microwave, noisily stirring the sides with a metal spoon. I hadn’t covered this point with her mother; that was how I remember Grandma Jacinta made hot chocolate. I would listen from the next room to the slow scrape of metal on metal and anticipate the sweet taste. There wasn’t a brown mug like the one Mary Catharine had described, but the white mugs Halley owned were large and would feel heavy in her hands. I put four Malomars on a plate, poured the hot chocolate, and brought the drink and cookies to her bedroom. On the way, I got the book I had brought from my raincoat.
Halley, her hair braided into a tail that draped down her right shoulder, was propped up by two pillows in bed, clutching a small stuffed white bear.
She sipped the hot chocolate and said, “Mmmmm.” She took a bite of a Malomar.
“Don’t you want to dip it?” I asked.
“It’ll be messy.”
“You’ve been a good girl. You can dip.” I opened the book, Goodnight Moon, holding it in my left hand, and began: “In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon.” She dunked half the Malomar, spread her lips over the melting chocolate shell and sucked at the gooey interior. I slid my right hand under the covers and ran the tips of my fingers up her thigh.
I left an hour later. The procedure took ninety minutes. Double a normal therapy session, but I had been slowed down by her initial resistance, and this was, after all, our first one.
She complained that I didn’t allow her to touch me. In the early throes of orgasm, she asked to see my penis — using a child’s words, of course: “Can I see your thing?” I said no, that she was dirty.
As she climaxed, when I leaned over to whisper in her ear, she yelled, “Don’t say it!” I assume she meant my blunder during the bath adventure of reminding her that Gene died for her — although the bath scene had a different goal than my new one and therefore I can’t say it was a blunder. This time, as her belly undulated against my arm, I whispered, “You’re a good girl,” over and over until she was finished.
After I left her room, she called for me plaintively three times. Waiting in her foyer, ready to hurry out if I heard her leave the bed, I didn’t hear (nor did I expect to so early in the treatment) the tears, the sobs of abandonment, that I believed would mean we had achieved a breakthrough.
The next day, I arrived late at the Carnegie Deli. There was a line spilling out the door waiting for tables. I didn’t see Edgar or Stick so I joined its end. A short man in an expensive three-piece came up to me. “Dr. Neruda?” I nodded. “Mr. Levin’s waiting for you inside. Follow me.”
He led me through a narrow path between jammed tables, and around waiters carrying plates of towering sandwiches above their heads. A pastrami and corned beef came within an inch of my nose. “You’re too tall,” the pale, sweating waiter told me. “Sit down already.”
Edgar, Stick, and Didier Lahost had been seated in the closest thing to a private table, all the way in the left rear corner, against two mirrored walls and with no one to the right because of the kitchen door. Even so, we were crowded in, bumped repeatedly, and of course the noise was deafening.
“Edgar, this is a ridiculous place to get acquainted with someone. Hello, Monsieur,” I added to Didier, and began an imitation of my father, a model for me of how to be charming. I was, at once, curious about the stranger, teasing toward the powerful presence of Edgar and apparently intimate about my life. I treated Stick as if he were my child, talking about him in the third person, sometimes answering for him. I asked Didier if his name was Alsatian. They hadn’t bothered to inquire about his history and he was glad to tell it. When he mentioned that his mother was Spanish, he and I were off. She turned out to be an Asturian, the neighboring province to my grandfather’s, Galicia, and the birthplace of my Uncle Pancho. I told the story of Francisco abducting me from Uncle Bernie — delighting Edgar, naturally, since this now encompassed Great Neck gossip. I was very lucky in the coincidence of a Spanish connection with Didier. That made it easier to isolate Stick, dimming his light before Edgar, and exacerbating his mild paranoia (a presenting symptom of sadism) into a frenzy.
Our cheerful conversation lasted for more than two hours, past three o’clock, when the popular Carnegie emptied out considerably and we could lower our voices. Edgar used a cellular phone to cancel a meeting, saying he was having too good a time listening to me spill the beans about Bernie.
“I hope the meeting wasn’t important, Edgar,” I said. “Buying the Empire State Building?”
“Just the West Side,” he said. “Listen, Didier, what about Spain? Shouldn’t we move into that market?”
“Well, we do have … That is, earlier, you know, the old company, had pretty good sales there,” Didier said.
“Didier,” Edgar said. “You should have Rafe come over to Paris and consult. Stick can tell you how helpful he’s been to him.”
“Yes?” Didier said, looking at Stick.
“Oh yeah,” Stick had to clear his throat. He hadn’t gotten a word in for over an hour. “Terrific.”
“You’re a psychiatrist?” Didier asked me doubtfully.
Edgar nudged him with an elbow. Didier was startled. “He’s figured out how to make those misfits in the labs happy. What’s up, anyway, Rafe? You bored with us? Stick wants you to work full-time. You done with your research? Lost interest in us greedy capitalists?”
I smiled at Edgar and then glanced at Stick. I searched for nervousness. His stern gaunt face showed nothing, merely a steady watchful gaze. He’s dangerous, I thought. He’s a different breed than Halley. In the final analysis, her narcissism was a defense against an unloving father; his sadism was a counterattack.
“If you are a capitalist,” Didier asked me, “you should be greedy, no?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Anything else would be neurotic.”
“Now there’s a book for you to write,” Edgar said to me. “For a while there in the eighties, greed was developing a good reputation. But what we need is a first-rate psychological defense of greed.”
“History’s on your side, Edgar,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
“So what’s the verdict, Rafe?” Edgar insisted, his eyes straying to Stick. “Are you going to continue consulting for us?”
“He’s consulting for me,” Stick said softly. “It was my idea.” He stared at Edgar.
Good for you, I thought. You’re not really scared of the great Edgar Levin. You’re using him, and if you’re given the chance, you’ll beat him too.
“I’m glad we had this lunch,” I said, interrupting their staring contest. “Before I decide whether to stay on and lead the fall retreat, I’d like you, Edgar, to answer a question as carefully and precisely as you can.”
He whistled. “Wow. This sounds good. What is it?”
“You’ve made a big bet on Stick’s management abilities, is that right?”
“Medium-sized bet.”
“Congratulations, Edgar.”
“On making money? That doesn’t sound like you, Rafe.”
“Congratulations on the scale of your world. Here’s my question. What if — remember, this is hypothetical — what if I told you that I believed Minotaur could run just as well, perhaps better, without Stick?” Didier, who was facing me, opened his eyes very wide. I didn’t check on Stick’s reaction. I smiled pleasantly at Edgar and continued, “That he isn’t responsible for creating their products or how they are marketed?”